Publicity

 Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.

            From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion, which is one component of marketing. The other elements of the promotional mix are advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing and personal selling. Examples of promotional tactics include:

Art exhibitions, event sponsorship, Arrange a speech or talk, Make an analysis or prediction, Conduct a poll or survey, Issue a report, Take a stand on a controversial subject, Arrange for a testimonial, Announce an appointment, Invent then present an award, Stage a debate, Organize a tour of your business or projects, Issue a commendation.

The advantages of publicity are low cost, and credibility (particularly if the publicity is aired in between news stories like on evening TV news casts). New technologies such as weblogs, web cameras, web affiliates, and convergence (phone-camera posting of pictures and videos to websites) are changing the cost-structure.

The disadvantages are lack of control over how your releases will be used, and frustration over the low percentage of releases that are taken up by the media.

            Publicity draws on several key themes including birth, love, and death. These are of particular interest because they are themes in human lives, which feature heavily throughout life. In television serials several couples have emerged during crucial ratings and important publicity times, as a way to make constant headlines. Also known as a publicity stunt, the pairings may or may not be according to the fact.

Promotion

 Promotion is one of the market mix elements, and a term used frequently in marketing. The specification of five promotional mix or promotional plan. These elements are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity.^[1] A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the five subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image. Fundamentally, however there are three basic objectives of promotion. These are:  

·         To present information to consumers as well as others.

·         To increase demand.

·         To differentiate a product.

There are different ways to promote a product in different areas of media. Promoters use internet advertisement, special events, endorsements, and newspapers to advertise their product. Many times with the purchase of a product there is an incentive like discounts, free items, or a contest. This is to increase the sales of a given product.

The term "promotion" is usually an "in" expression used internally by the marketing company, but not normally to the public or the market - phrases like "special offer" are more common. An example of a fully integrated, long-term, large-scale promotion are My Coke Rewards and Pepsi Stuff. The UK version of My Coke Rewards is Coke Zone.

Direct Marketing

 The practice of delivering promotional messages directly to potential customers on an individual basis as opposed to through a mass medium.

 Direct marketing is a type of advertising campaign that seeks to elicit an action (such as an order, a visit to a store or Web site, or a request for further information) from a selected group of consumers in response to a communication from the marketer. The communication itself may be in any of a variety of formats including postal mail, telemarketing, direct e-mail marketing, and point-of-sale (POS) interactions. Customer response should be measurable: for example, the marketer should be able to determine whether or not a customer offered a discount for online shopping takes advantage of the offer.

 

Temporary Discount Pricing

 Small companies also may use temporary discounts to increase sales. Temporary discount pricing strategies include coupons, cents-off sales, seasonal price reductions and even volume purchases. For example, a small clothing manufacturer may offer seasonal price reductions after the holidays to reduce product inventory.

Competitive-Based Pricing

 There are times when a small company may have to lower its price to meet the prices of competitors. A competitive-based pricing strategy may be employed when there is little difference between products in an industry. For example, when people purchase paper plates or foam cups or a picnic, they often shop for the lowest price when there is minimal product differentiation

Product Life Cycle Pricing

 All products have a life span, called product life cycle. A product gradually progresses through different stages in the cycle: introduction, growth, maturity and decline stages. During the growth stage, when sales are booming, a small company usually will keep prices higher. For example, if the company's product is unique or of higher quality than competitive products, customers will likely pay the higher price.

Price Skimming

 Another type of pricing strategy is price skimming, in which a company sets its prices high to quickly recover expenditures for product production and advertising. The key objective of a price skimming strategy is to achieve a profit quickly..

Penetration Pricing

 A small company that uses penetration pricing typically sets a low price for its product or service in hopes of building market share, which is the percentage of sales a company has in the market versus total sales. The primary objective of penetration pricing is to garner lots of customers with low prices and then use various marketing strategies to retain them. For example, a small Internet software distributor may set a low price for its products and subsequently email customers with additional software product offers every month. A small company will work hard to serve these customers to build brand loyalty among them.

 

Pricing Strategy

 Pricing is one of the most important decisions a marketer must make regarding a product since price plays a crucial role in competitiveness and consumer demand. Marketers must determine price at the initial stage of a product's life and re-evaluate pricing to manage the delicate balance between production and profits.

Pricing strategy refers to method companies use to price their products or services. Almost all companies, large or small, base the price of their products and services on production, labor and advertising expenses and then add on a certain percentage so they can make a profit. There are several different pricing strategies, such as penetration pricing, price skimming, discount pricing, product life cycle pricing and even competitive pricing.

Product Mix

 Product mix is the sum total of all products that a company offers. For example, a pet food manufacturer may offer several varieties of dog and cat food. These multiple products may serve different customers, dog and cat owners, but the products are all part of the company's product mix. Products within a product mix can either be similar or variegated. There are also 4 dimensions to product mix: width, length, depth and consistency.

A range of associated products that yields larger sales revenue when marketed together than if they were marketed individually or in isolation from others.

Width : The width of product mix includes all the product lines that a company sells. For example, if a vitamin company sells various vitamins, diet products and sports drinks, its product width is three.

Length: The length of a company's product mix pertains to the total number of products the company sells, For example, a small consumer products company may have three product lines: snacks, cereal and canned meats. This consumer products company may sell five snack items, four cereals and three varieties of canned meats. Therefore, the company's product mix length is 12.

Depth: A company's product mix depth pertains to the total number of variations for each product. Product variation can include flavor, fragrance, size and any other salient attribute. For example, if a small pastry manufacturer sells 3 flavors of pastries and two sizes of each flavor, the product depth is six.

Consistency: Consistency in product mix refers to the relationship between product lines, including use, production and distribution. For example, a small fruit drink manufacturer may use similar production lines for several different types of drinks. Hence, the production of that company's product mix is highly consistent.

Strategy of product mix

Almost all companies start with limited width, length and depth in their product mix. Additionally, a company's product mix will also be highly consistent early on. However, competition or technology may force a company to become more diversified. For example, a small lavatory manufacturer may need to sell vessels, various styles of sinks and faucets to gain more exposure at a kitchen and bath dealership. Consequently, the additional products will likely add to the width, length and depth of the company's product mix.

Product Differentiation

 A marketing process that showcases the differences between products. Differentiation looks to make a product more attractive by contrasting its unique qualities with other competing products. Successful product differentiation creates a competitive advantage for the seller, as customers view these products as unique or superior.

Product differentiation can be achieved in many ways. It may be as simple as packaging the goods in a creative way, or as elaborate as incorporating new functional features. Sometimes differentiation does not involve changing the product at all, but creating a new advertising campaign or other sales promotions instead.

Example:  When buying a personal computer, a typical consumer pays a $295 premium for an IBM, $232 more for a Compaq, and $92 more for a Dell than for a similarly configured Gateway. Zeos, NEC, Everex, and Packard Bell sell at a discount relative to Gateway. Many experts believe that these differentials are larger than the measurable differences in quality among the brands.

 

Brand equity

 Brand Equity is the value and strength of the Brand that decides its worth. It can also be defined as the differential impact of brand knowledge on consumers response to the Brand Marketing. Brand Equity exists as a function of consumer choice in the market place. The concept of Brand Equity comes into existence when consumer makes a choice of a product or a service. It occurs when the consumer is familiar with the brand and holds some favourable positive strong and distinctive brand associations in the memory.

A brand's power derived from the goodwill and name recognition that it has earned over time, which translates into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands.

Brand Equity can be determined by measuring:

·    Returns to the Share-Holders.

·    Evaluating the Brand Image for various parameters that are considered significant.

·    Evaluating the Brand’s earning potential in long run.

·  By evaluating the increased volume of sales created by the brand compared to other brands in the same class.

·   The price premium charged by the brand over non-branded products

·  From the prices of the shares that an organization commands in the market (specifically if the brand name is identical to the corporate name or the consumers can easily co-relate the performance of all the individual brands of the organization with the organizational financial performance.

·   OR, An amalgamation of all the above methods.

 

Factors contributing to Brand Equity

1.    Brand Awareness ,     2. Brand Associations

2.    Brand Loyalty ,          4. Perceived Quality

5.    Other Proprietary Brand Assets

Shopping good

 Shopping goods are those goods for which the gain derived from making price and quality comparisons are more than the costs of making such comparisons. In case od shopping goods, the consumer regularly formulates a new solution to his need each time the need is aroused.

Frequent changes in price, style, features or product technology causes the existing information to become obsolete.

A higher end product occasionally bought by consumers that are usually compared for their appropriateness, quality, cost and features before purchase occurs. Consumers tend to take more time when purchasing a shopping good produced by a business, and they might even travel to buy such goods.

Also, the consumer will be willing to make additional comparisons until the benefits derived from making such a comparison is more than the cost of making such comparisons

Consumer Buying Behavior? Steps of Buying decision behavior? Types of consumer behavior

 Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products.

Consumer Buying Behavior refers to the buying behavior of the ultimate consumer. A firm needs to analyze buying behavior for:

·         Buyers reactions to a firms marketing strategy has a great impact on the firms success.

·         The marketing concept stresses that a firm should create a Marketing Mix (MM) that satisfies (gives utility to) customers, therefore need to analyze the what, where, when and how consumers buy.

·         Marketers can better predict how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.

Stages of the Consumer Buying Process

Six Stages to the Consumer Buying Decision Process (For complex decisions). The 6 stages are:

1.      Problem Recognition(awareness of need)--difference between the desired state and the actual condition. Deficit in assortment of products. Hunger--Food. Hunger stimulates your need to eat.
Can be stimulated by the marketer through product information--did not know you were deficient? I.E., see a commercial for a new pair of shoes, stimulates your recognition that you need a new pair of shoes.

2.      Information search--

Internal search, memory.

External search if you need more information. Friends and relatives (word of mouth).

Marketer dominated sources; comparison shopping; public sources etc.

A successful information search leaves a buyer with possible alternatives, the evoked set.

       Hungry, want to go out and eat, evoked set is

·         Chinese food

·         Indian food

·         burger king

·         klondike kates etc

3.Evaluation of Alternatives--need to establish criteria for evaluation, features the buyer wants or does not want. Rank/weight alternatives or resume search. May decide that you want to eat something spicy, Indian gets highest rank etc.

If not satisfied with your choice then return to the search phase. Can you think of another restaurant? Look in the yellow pages etc. Information from different sources may be treated differently. Marketers try to influence by "framing" alternatives.

4.Purchase decision--Choose buying alternative, includes product, package, store, method of purchase etc.

5.Purchase--May differ from decision, time lapse between 4 & 5, product availability.

6. Post-Purchase Evaluation--outcome: Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction. Cognitive Dissonance, have you made the right decision. This can be reduced by warranties, after sales communication etc.
After eating an Indian meal, may think that really you wanted a Chinese meal instead.

 

Types of Consuming Behavior:

The four type of consumer buying behavior are:

·         Routine Response/Programmed Behavior--buying low involvement frequently purchased low cost items; need very little search and decision effort; purchased almost automatically. Examples include soft drinks, snack foods, milk etc.

·         Limited Decision Making--buying product occasionally. When you need to obtain information about unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category, perhaps. Requires a moderate amount of time for information gathering. Examples include Clothes--know product class but not the brand.

·         Extensive Decision Making/Complex high involvement, unfamiliar, expensive and/or infrequently bought products. High degree of economic/performance/psychological risk. Examples include cars, homes, computers, education. Spend alot of time seeking information and deciding.
Information from the companies MM; friends and relatives, store personnel etc. Go through all six stages of the buying process.

·         Impulse buying, no conscious planning.

 

Consumer’s Buying Roles

 The five main buying roles are as follows:

1.      The Initiator – the person who decides to start the buying process.

2.      The Influencer – the person who tries to convince others they need the product.

3.      The Decider – the person who makes the final decision to purchase.

4.      The Buyer – the person who is going to write you the check.

5.      The User – the person who ends up using your product, whether he had a say in the buying process or not.

Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy

 Psychologist Abraham Maslows Needs Hierarchy is the popular theory of human needs that helps us understand motivation. Maslow believed that people’s behavior was motivated by their desire to fulfill needs. These needs were arranged in a hierarchy from the most basic several needs at the bottom to self-fulfilling needs at the top.

Maslow identify five basic needs that explain the internal motivation process: a) Physiological need, b) Safety need, c) Social need, d) Esteem need, e) Self-actualization need.

a) Physiological need: The starting point for understanding motivation is physiological need. Physiological need is biological need such as for food, air, water etc. But once physiological needs are fulfilled they lose their power to motivate.

b) Safety need: After fulfill their physiological need they want safety need. It is very important needs for an employee or workers. Safety need is security need such as the need to be financially secure and protected against job loss. Safety needs can be satisfied by the creation of seniority  systems, pensions and insurance plans.

c)  Social need: Social need is the need to belong and to interact with other people, i.e. friendship, group membership,. Once social needs have been largely satisfied, they also begin to lose their power to motivate.

d) Esteem need: Esteem need is the need for self-respect and for respect from others. When the need for esteem is strong the individual will often set difficult goals, work hard to achieve the goals, and expect to receive recognition for these efforts. Goal accomplishment and the resulting recognition lead to feelings of self-esteem and self-confidence.

e) Self-actualization need: The top of the need hierarchy is self-actualization. Self-actualization is the need to use and display one’s full range of skills and competence. Maslow noted that self-actualizing people display certain characteristics:

·  They tend to be serious and thoughtful.

· They focus on problems outside themselves

· They are strongly ethical

·  Their behavior is unaffected and natural.

Explain relationship between Attitude and behavior

 The effects of attitudes on behaviors represent a significant research enterprise within psychology. Two theoretical approaches have dominated this research: the theory of reasoned action^[23] and, its theoretical descendant, the theory of planned behavior, both of which are associated with Icek Ajzen. Both of these theories describe the link between attitude and behavior as a deliberative process, with an individual actively choosing to engage in an attitude-related behavior.

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a model for the prediction of behavioral intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behavior. The subsequent separation of behavioral intention from behavior allows for explanation of limiting factors on attitudinal influence (Ajzen, 1980). The Theory of Reasoned Action was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975, 1980), derived from previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory was "born largely out of frustration with traditional attitude–behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between attitude measures and performance of volitional behaviors" (Hale, Householder & Greene, 2003, p. 259).

The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985 through his article "From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior." The theory was developed from the theory of reasoned action, which was proposed by Martin Fishbein together with Icek Ajzen in 1975. The theory of reasoned action was in turn grounded in various theories of attitude such as learning theories, expectancy-value theories, consistency theories, and attribution theory. According to the theory of reasoned action, if people evaluate the suggested behavior as positive (attitude), and if they think their significant others want them to perform the behavior (subjective norm), this results in a higher intention (motivation) and they are more likely to do so.

A counter-argument against the high relationship between behavioral intention and actual behavior has also been proposed, as the results of some studies show that, because of circumstantial limitations, behavioral intention does not always lead to actual behavior.

Discuss the Attitude Change

 Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and an important domain of research on attitude change focuses on responses to communication. Experimental research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message include:

1.      Target Characteristics: These are characteristics that refer to the person who receives and processes a message. One such trait is intelligence - it seems that more intelligent people are less easily persuaded by one-sided messages. Another variable that has been studied in this category is self-esteem.

2.      Source Characteristics: The major source characteristics are expertise, trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness. The credibility of a perceived message has been found to be a key variable here; if one reads a report about health and believes it came from a professional medical journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular newspaper.

3.       Message Characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes. When people are not motivated to process the message, simply the number of arguments presented in a persuasive message will influence attitude change, such that a greater number of arguments will produce greater attitude change.

4.      Cognitive Routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive evaluation to help change an attitude. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the source.

Explain the Function of Attitude

 Daniel Katz classified attitudes into four different groups based on their functions

• Utilitarian: provides us with general approach or avoidance tendencies
• Knowledge: help people organize and interpret new information
• Ego-defensive: attitudes can help people protect their self-esteem
• Value-expressive: used to express central values or beliefs

1.  Utilitarian People adopt attitudes that are rewarding and that help them avoid punishment. In other words any attitude that is adopted in a person's own self-interest is considered to serve a utilitarian function. Consider you have a condo, people with condos pay property taxes, and as a result you don't want to pay more taxes. If those factors lead to your attitude that " Increases in property taxes are bad" you attitude is serving a utilitarian function.

2.  Knowledge People need to maintain an organized, meaningful, and stable view of the world. That being said important values and general principles can provide a framework for our knowledge. Attitudes achieve this goal by making things fit together and make sense. Example:

• I believe that I am a good person.
• I believe that good things happen to good people.

3.  Ego-Defensive This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use defense mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological harm. Mechanisms include:

1) Denial, 2) Repression, 3) Projection, 4) Rationalization

The ego-defensive notion correlates nicely with Downward Comparison Theory which holds the view that derogating a less fortunate other increases our own subjective well-being.

4.  Value-Expressive

• Serves to express one's central values and self-concept.
• Central values tend to establish our identity and gain us social approval thereby showing us who we are, and what we stand for.

An example would concern attitudes toward a controversial political issue.

Define Attitude. Explain its Functions. Discuss the attitude changes. Explain relationship between Attitude and behavior

 An attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object). Prominent psychologist Gordon Allport once described attitudes "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology."Attitude can be formed from a person's past and present. Attitude is also measurable and changeable as well as influencing the person's emotion and behavior.

            An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment, but there is debate about precise definitions. Eagly and Chaiken, for example, define an attitude "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

Model of Consumer Behavior

 Consumer Behavior models are essential tools that marketers can use to help understand why consumers do or do not buy a product. The different types of models are the black box model, the personal variable model, and the comprehensive model, and each model has a specific focus. The black box model concentrates on external stimuli, the personal variable model focuses on internal stimuli within the consumer, and the comprehensive model studies a combination of external and internal stimuli.

The black box model, also called the stimulus-response model, is one of the most simple types of consumer behavior models. The black box can be thought of as the region of the consumer's brain that is responsible for purchasing decisions. Environmental stimuli, such as economics, technology, and culture, combine with marketing stimuli, like the product, price, and promotion, inside the black box, where decisions are made. This model ignores variables within the consumer and focuses on marketing and environmental variables that produce the desired response.

The personal variable model is another one of the major types of consumer behavior models. Unlike the black box model, where external stimuli is the main focus, the personal variable model studies what internal factors affect consumer behavior and purchasing decisions. This model specifically ignores external stimuli, such as marketing techniques, and concentrates on internal psychological variables. These variables include lifestyle, motivations, and personality. It also looks at individual decision-making processes, such as problem recognition, alternative evaluation, as well as post-purchase behavior.

The final major types of consumer behavior models are the comprehensive models. As the name might suggest, this type of model takes into account both environmental and internal stimuli when studying purchasing behavior. This type of model is one of the most complex studies because of how many variables are in play. It is beneficial because it is the only model that can be used to study how different external stimuli react in different types of personalities and demographics. It is, however, difficult to determine the accuracy of the conclusions drawn from these studies because of the amount of variables

Define consumer behavior. Explain the Models of Consumer behavior

 Define consumer behavior. Explain the Models of Consumer behavior

Consumer Behavior is the study of how individuals make decisions to spend their available resources (time, money, effort) on consumption related items.

Philip Kotler & Gray Armstrong: Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of final consumers-individuals and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption.

Engel, Blackwell & Kollat, Consumer buyer is the acts of individuals in obtaining and using goods and services including the decision processes that precede and determine these acts.      

"All marketing decisions are based on assumptions and knowledge of consumer behavior," (Hawkins and Mothersbaugh, 2007).

Brekman & Gilson: Consumer behavior may be defined as activities of people engaged in actual or potential use of market items-whether products services, retail environments or idea,

Steven J. Skinner: Consumer behavior is the action and decision processes of people who purchase goods and services for personal consumption.

Loudon & Bitta: Consumer behavior may be defined as the decision process and physical activity individuals engage in when evaluation acquiring, using or disposing of goods, or services.

Strategic planning

 Strategic planning is a process by which we determine the answers to two questions and then craft a plan to achieve desires results. The two questions are:

•    How much?

•    By when?

These questions are generally framed as goals and objectives, while the action plan that supports these two questions is called strategies and tactics. The key to any strategic plan is to first answer the two important questions of how much, by when, and identify baselines and targets for each of its strategic plan objectives. Without measurable and quantifiable strategic plan objectives, the planning process remains largely unfocused, with real results weak or non-existent.
Set a long-term vision through goals, identify strong objectives to measure progress toward the goals and then create actionable strategies and tactics that will move the objectives toward the desired results. That is the fundamental definition of strategic planning.

The Four Stages of Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a process that helps companies focus on how to succeed for the future. Every company, large or small, should participate in the strategic planning process at least every three years. This planning will help you, your customers and employees understand what the core business is, what the expectations are, and what measurements are important.

Here are the Strategic Planning Steps and Phases:

·         Define where the Company wants to be (i.e. business goals)

·         Gather information (internal and external)

·         Develop alternative strategies, then select a strategy that will provide the best chances of meeting Company goals

·         Implement the plan

·         Evaluate and revise when needed

 Phase I: Strategy Formulation – vision, mission and values developed.

Phase II: Strategy Development – SWOT Analysis (internal strengths and weaknesses, external opportunities and threats).

Phase III: Strategy Implementation — Short term objectives established, action plans and resources allocation.

Phase IV: Strategy Evaluation – strategy review and measurement (scorecard).

How the product pricing strategies are being implemented method in a Financial institutions like Bank

 The following diagram are explained the product pricing strategies implementation in a Financial Institutions like Bank.

Why new product development is important

 Process of developing a new product or service for the market: This type of development is considered the preliminary step in product or service development and involves a number of steps that must be completed before the product can be introduced to the market. New product development may be done to develop an item to compete with a particular product/service or may be done to improve an already established product. New product development is essential to any business that must keep up with market trends and changes.

McCarthy & Perreault: Competition is strong and dynamic in most markets. So it is essential for a firm to keep developing new products as well as modifying its current products to meet changing customer needs and competitors actions.

            New Product development is important because of the following reasons:

a) Fulfill customer’s new demand. B) Increase consumer satisfaction, c) To maintain customer’s loyalty, d) To increase sales, e) To increase profit, f) Cross selling, g) Survival of the firm, h) Technological development, I) To face competition, j) To buildup goodwill and image of the organizations, k) To bring product diversification, l) Maximum utilization of energy and resources, m) To utilize market opportunity, n) Reduce investment risk, o) Creating new prospect of the product.( Example: Sony Trinitron flat screen T.V. or General Air conditioner, To sale Histacin Jayson Pharmaceuticals earn more profit from the market.